Survival in the badlands: an exploration of disaffected students’ uses of space in a UK secondary school

Abstract

This article considers the understandings of space and place amongst a group of disaffected students within an institution that had been in a state of flux over a number of years. The article explores ways in which students are positioned by institutions into specific spaces, ways in which they use those spaces to challenge authority and ways in which they appropriate both space and place to assert new, and often playful, identities. The authors consider the meanings of the spatial behaviour of students through notions of space and place as developed by Doreen Massey, with reference to a Foucauldian understanding of power. In some ways, the students might be perceived as being marginalised, victims of a hierarchical environment in which their status is low. Yet they also emerge as active agents, forging new interpretations of their surroundings and robust group identities, and reinforcing in-group relationships through spatial behaviour.

Keywords:

• Space
• place
• identities
• school ethnography
• student resistance

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.